


no duty higher

by Ias



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Agoraphobia, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Marriage of Convenience
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-07-23 12:33:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20008354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ias/pseuds/Ias
Summary: After the river, Javert faces a new conundrum.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheLifeOfEmm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLifeOfEmm/gifts).



Javert, as always, is in his room. It had been Cosette’s room once, before her marriage; but in the course of Javert’s occupation over the previous weeks--or has it been months, now?--it has become fully and unquestionably his own. It had become as such in the same way that a room might become a library once it was filled with books. And he never left.

At first it was of necessity, for he scarcely had the strength to leave his bed. Now it is a necessity of a different sort. 

The window was shut, the curtains parted. Javert sat just to the side of them, where anyone walking the garden path outside could not have seen him and yet where he himself could still look out. Valjean had been kneeling in the beds of tomatoes for an hour or so before; he had only just finished washing the dirt from his hands. The knowledge that Javert watched him had made him uneasy, at first. He has long since grown used to it. His purpose here is not to scold. 

“May I open the window?” Valjean says. Javert does not respond, nor even glance up at him, and so Valjean steps past him to loosen the latch and allow the breeze in. It smells of roses and herbs and dirt warmed from the sun. When he backs away there is a tension to Javert’s spine that had not existed even in his usual rigid posture, though whether it is from the scent of outside air or the closeness of a convict, Valjean does not dare to contemplate. 

“It’s lovely out,” he says, pulling up a chair beside Javert’s. The pale indirect light from outside is a stark divide between them, Valjean in the light and Javert over the line of darkness. “Perhaps you would come to the market with me. It would be helpful to have an extra pair of hands.” 

Javert does turn to look at him, then. Something plays across his expression that Valjean cannot quite make out in the dark. “You’ve managed before,” he says at last, toneless; and turns his gaze back to the now-empty garden. 

“To the Luxemburg, then,” Valjean says, aware that he is reaching now. “You seem to enjoy looking on my garden, but this one puts it to shame. It is not so far that we would even have to hire a fiacre.” 

This earns him a scoff. “Your garden is there, and so I look upon it. I do not care for plants one way or the other.” 

“Then perhaps we might walk--”

“Valjean.” Javert turns to look at him again, and there is something of his old self in the glance now: a sharpness like a fishing spear, plunging deep and barbed. “I have no interest in any of these diversions. There is nothing you can tempt me with, so you may as well leave me.” 

A low dull coal of anger kindles in Valjean’s chest at last. He stands, so quickly that he sees Javert tense, and pushes back both of the curtains to their fullest extent. When he turns back around Javert is blinking in the new light, raising a hand against it with a sour expression. 

“For weeks you have haunted this room,” Valjean says, crossing his arms over his chest. “Coaxing you to eat in the kitchen has become a triumph; bringing you to the threshold of my door is unthinkable. Do you expect to live out the rest of your days here, in these four walls, staring out a window onto a view which gives you no pleasure?” 

Javert has lowered his hands; he bares his teeth in an animal sneer. “I did not intend to have more days to live out. That was your decision, Jean Valjean.”

“Perhaps it was. And I will not beg your pardon for it.” Valjean returns to his chair. Javert’s eyes follow him now, no longer adrift on the plane of window glass. Perhaps his hunter’s instinct has stirred. “If this decision too must fall to me, then I will make you. You must go out.” 

“Very well, then. I shall.” 

Valjean blinks. Surely, after all this time, it has not been this easy. “...You shall?”

“Yes.” Javert stands, and without another word heads for the door. Valjean gapes at his retreating back for as long as it takes him to step into the hall before hurrying after him.

“Javert, you cannot go out like that--” The man is only in his shirt sleeves, and yet he spares Valjean only a disdaining glance as he walks down the hallway. 

“And why not?” he says. He is almost at the front parlor now. “It is not so far to the riverbank. I imagine I would not be stopped in the time it would take to walk there--”

“ _Enough_.” They have reached the front door; Javert is reaching for the handle. Valjean seizes his arm before he can complete the motion, turning him forcefully from his present course until they are face to face once more. Javert’s expression is set into a contemptuous grimace which cuts deep lines into his face. His eyes are the sole incongruity; they stare out of his face with a wild sort of terror. Before Valjean can begin to tell him that such a course of action is as unacceptable now as it was on the night after the barricades Javert is already speaking.

“Do you not understand?,” he says, the words low and fast with desperation. “When I leave this house I face the same choice which drove me to that parapet in the first place. Still I must turn you in, or allow you to go free: still neither choice is tolerable. Only within this house, this prison, can I continue to defer that choice. Cast me out, if you will; I go willingly. As I said: the river is not far.” 

By the end of this tirade Javert has leaned so close that his breath is hot on Valjean’s face, his hand raising like a taloned claw to grip the arm which grips him; his expression is that of a feral dog but his eyes are those of a wolf in a trap. Valjean does not flinch away. When he tightens his grip on Javert’s arm it is a reassurance, not a shackle. 

“There is a middle way,” he says softly. “This need not end in oblivion for either of us.” 

Javert remains silent. His eyes are lowered to Valjean’s mouth as if searching it for the truth of his words. “If there is a middle way, I cannot see it,” he says at last. His body sags; he hand on Valjean’s arm drops limply back to his side. “I wish that I could. By God, I wish it. But that is not who I am.”

 _Men like me can never change_. Valjean hears the echo of that sentiment in his words, and could almost shake him for it. But his hand remains gentle; his mouth curls up into a sad smile.

“I am tired,” Javert says, dropping his eyes to the floor at last. “Will you permit me to return to my room?” 

Valjean almost says no. He almost reaches for the door handle himself--they are so very close, it would be nothing at all to draw Javert past the threshold. To walk with him in the garden, sit him down on the bench where he and Cosette spent so many an afternoon. Javert is nearly swaying beneath his hand; he would not fight it. If he could only prove to the man that life might go on outside the walls of Rue Plumet, if he might guide his feet down the middle path himself--but God had not made this man so easy to bend.

“Of course,” is what Valjean says, and gently guides Javert away from the door, and the crushing weight it holds at bay. 

It is not so long after that when Valjean gets the idea.

* * *

“You’ve been away often.” 

Valjean pauses in the act of setting the chess pieces upon the battered board. It is night--the curtains of the kitchen are drawn on the black glass, and Javert occupies the corner where their tea is steeping like a dark pillar of ill will, his shoulders hunched and his arms crossed over his chest. Valjean had coaxed him to the kitchen with the promise of a game, and Javert had not even shown his usual reticence. Perhaps now that Valjean knew the reason for his hesitation, he was not so afraid to move about the rest of the house at will. 

Valjean had attempted to bring in a doctor, a memory which still makes him cringe. Javert, who had for weeks returned to the reserved nature he had cultivated for a lifetime, had flown into a rage the likes of which Valjean hadn’t seen since the early days after his rebirth from the Seine. The doctor had left in a flustered huff, and Valjean had needed to court him back to a lunch at a cafe far from the house, where he’d managed to get a few answers. 

“It’s clear the patient is highly disturbed,” the doctor had said rather primly after listening to Valjean’s explanations. “Whenever there is a sudden upheaval in the mental attitude, such as this fear of leaving the house, there is always some intense 

“And how could such a thing be addressed?” Valjean had said, a tad helplessly.

“That depends,” the doctor said. “What is the manner of the trouble?”

But what could Valjean say? He sat there in silence, frowning at his half-drained cup of tea; and when at last he looked up the doctor had fixed him with a pitying smile.

“You are a good friend to such a man, Monsieur,” he said gently; and though the words  _ he is not my friend _ leapt immediately to his lips, he found he could not speak them into being without the taste of a lie bittering his tongue. “But you cannot help someone who does not wish to be helped.”

Valjean has thought of that conversation often, in the coming weeks. And he has decided, ultimately, that the sentiment is incorrect. He had dragged Javert from the river with the man’s body fighting him with every stroke; he had dredged him out of the mire of a fever which surely would have claimed him otherwise. Cosette was gone; Valjean had no one else, no one to care for, but this strange half-feral man who had rather die than complete the duty he had assigned to himself some twenty years. If this was the final task which God had assigned him, he would undertake it. Javert would live. 

“I have been visiting Cosette, and Marius,” Valjean replies as he continues setting up the board. 

Javert scoffs. “So I have finally driven you out of your own home.”

“Not everything I do is in direct reaction to you, Javert,” Valjean says mildly. “I merely wanted to visit my daughter. Now bring our tea over--you may have white.”

With another dismissive sound, Javert carries both their cups over with a scowl. “You ought to take white. I’m tired of beating you soundly every time.”

“Hardly every time. I won two games against you just yesterday.”

“Perhaps I was letting you win.”

“You weren’t. You were far too irritable in the aftermath.” 

One side of Javert’s mouth tugs itself upward. He tilts his head downward until he can master himself, but by the time he looks up again Valjean is returning the stunted smile.

“Your move,” Valjean says, inhaling the fragrance of the tea and watching Javert scrutinize his options.

It was not a lie, to say that he merely wanted to visit Cosette--neither was it the whole truth. For on those visits to the Pontmercy household he had lingered often in the library, well stocked with books of law; though he had seemed only to leaf through them idly, in truth he had been poring over them with all his attention. 

Not once in his life had he devoted so much effort to the study of the laws which had ensnared him so long ago. But now a man’s life hangs in the balance; a life other than his own. For that, he must take action. Even if he cannot shake the persistent feeling of selfishness this line of thinking takes.

Just yesterday, he had stumbled upon something that made his heart leap with hope--and his gut twist in nervous dread. Surely Javert noticed his agitation, for the man noticed all; but he said nothing as Valjean moved his pawn two spaces forward, Javert’s eyes shifting from an intense survey of the board, to him and back again. 

Valjean has inadvertently sacrificed both his rooks and one knight when Javert sits back in his chair with a sigh. “If you have something to say you ought to say it, Valjean. Your playing is atrocious when you’re distracted.” 

Valjean glances up, expression somewhere between exasperated and fond. He has learned to recognize the signs of Javert’s masked concern. And yet he finds he cannot hold Javert’s gaze for long, not with what he is about to propose. He drops his eyes back to the playing board, toys with one of Javert’s captured pawns.

“I believe I may have found a possible solution to your dilemma,” he says at last.

Javert snorts. “Well! With that many qualifiers this truly must be good.”

Vajean lets out a short huff of his own. “It is--not what you expect, I am certain.” 

A quick glance confirms that Javert’s dismissive amusement has faded. “Out with it, then,” he says. 

“The problem at hand,” Valjean begins haltingly, “is that you cannot bear to willingly let me go free, while you also cannot bear to return me to prison.”

Javert makes a dubious noise which Valjean decides is assent. 

“The answer, then, it would seem, would be to make it so that you would be incapable of turning me in.”

“What precisely are you suggesting, Valjean?” 

Valjean sighs, his fingers raising to his brow as if to card through his hair, but merely hesitating at his hairline. “That is to say--if I were no longer an entity you were capable 

“Valjean I honestly cannot imagine--”

Valjean raises a hand. “You are familiar with the concept of… coverture?” 

From the way Javert stares at him with sudden, dreadful focus, the answer is surely yes. Valjean fiddles with the handle of his tea cup, a sickly smile on his face. “Well. You see, under that law, you would not be able to take legal action against me because, by law, I would no longer exist.”

“If we were to marry,” Javert says, his voice painfully blank. 

“Well. Yes. That is a requirement.” 

Javert’s expression is incredulous, but it is swiftly moving towards something else: anger? Revulsion? 

“I understand that it is far from ideal--that the very concept is ridiculous. I assure you, no depth of feeling need come into it. It would be an arrangement, nothing more, for the sake of saving your life--”

“You would marry me.”

The interruption seems to imply that Javert has not actually heard a word he has been saying. “I would.”

“Why?”

“...It seems a logical solution.” 

“Logic.” And there is the sneer, long-awaited and now here in full force. “So you would have us live a different sort of lie--”

“There would be no lie.” Valjean swallows drily. “We would be married, in the eyes of God as well as the law.” A beat of silence. “I would ask nothing of you, beyond that,” Valjean says quietly. “But yes, it would be real.” 

Still Javert says nothing. “I am old, Javert,” Valjean says, for perhaps if he could only explain-- “I have long come to understand that all the love in my life must go to Cosette. I have never wanted another, never felt bereft. Not that Cosette is married, now that she is finally  _ safe _ , there is nothing left for me to do. Allow me to do this, for you.”

At this last, Valjean makes a mistake: he reaches out to gently, hesitantly touch the back of Javert’s hand on the table. Javert jerks away as if scalded, his eyes wild and hurt. 

“So this is how you would cast me,” he hisses, gripping his own hand. “I suppose I have tormented you for so long, why should you not assign me as your personal torturer for the rest of your days? Do you truly believe I would be so selfish as to allow you to forsake your very personhood for the benefit of--what? My life?” His teeth flashed, a grimace. “I would sooner have the river than that. I would sooner be sent to the bagne myself.”

“Very well, Javert,” Valjean says, wearily. He had had little hope in the idea to begin with, and yet--there had been some hope. “You are right--it was a foolish suggestion. Let us forget I ever mentioned it.” 

“That may be difficult,” Javert grumbles, and yet the edge of bitter vitriol in his voice has dulled ever so slightly. For a while they sit in silence, sipping their tea. Then at long last Javert makes his next move--taking anther of Valjean’s pawns, though in truth Valjean is too relieved at the prospect of leaving the agonizing moment behind them that he barely mourns its loss. 

* * *

And Valjean does forget. Or at least, he ceases to think of it; life returns to the bizarre equilibrium which has become the norm. A week passes; another. Javert paces the house, restless, when he believes Valjean is asleep. Valjean continues his reading; brings the books back for Javert to peruse as well, though usually the man just flips through them distractedly. Surely there is a part of him which does not actually desire to change; which remains certain that the only proper course of action is to bolt free of this house like an animal escaping its cage, and return only to lead Valjean away in chains. 

Somehow Valjean does not find himself afraid of that possibility. He and Javert play chess, and checkers; they debate philosophy with a fierceness as if they stand at the dawn of humanity, deciding its code of morals. Javert is prickly at most times; at others he is strangely quiet, watching Valjean with eyes like still, deep water beneath a moonless sky.

“You really would have done it.”

Valjean looks up from the book he is reading. It is late; he ought to have let the fire burn lower, but not so long ago Valjean put another log on the hearth for its heat and has found himself staying up with it as a result. He had thought Javert had gone to bed long ago; for though some nights the man hardly seems to sleep at all, others he care barely seem to bring himself to remain out of his bed from the moment the sun goes down. Valjean had even looked in on him, earlier; Javert had been lying on his side in his shirtsleeves, facing the wall, revealing nothing but a mute expanse of back and shoulders. Valjean had watched for a moment--long enough to know that Javert was not sleeping--before moving on without a word. 

But whatever demons Javert has been wrestling all evening, it seems he has vanquished them now. He stands in the doorway; it is all darkness behind him. The firelight catches on his outline and then falls away into darkness; he stands at the gate of an abyss, limned in gold. 

“You would have pledged yourself to me,” Javert continues in a low voice when Valjean does not respond. “After all that I’ve done to you. You would put yourself wholly in my power--why?”

Valjean licks his lips--perhaps they have been steadily drying in the heat of the fire, and he has only noticed it now. Or perhaps it is Javert’s words, and the taboo subject they broach once more. “I wanted to help you.”

“Why?”

“Because you needed it.”

Javert laughs, his head twisting away towards the shadow as if he has tasted something bitter. “I suppose that is reason enough for you. Impossible man.”

This new phase of Javert’s unexpected interrogation does not seem to require Valjean’s response, so he remains silent, patient, staring at Javert from across the room. In truth he is nervous, though he cannot say why. There is nothing he fears from Javert anymore. And yet his stomach is a knot in the very center of him, a tangled snarl.

“Surely you must have considered the option before now.” Even in the semi-darkness Valjean can see the bob of Javert’s throat as he swallows.

Somehow, despite Javert dissembling, Valjean knows exactly of what he speaks. He sits back in his chair, looks at Javert with open frankness. “I have not.” 

“In Montreuil you had many suitors.”

Valjean laughs, quick and dry, despite himself. “Javert, you yourself saw how disinterested I was in those men and women.”

Javert makes a dubious sound. Dubious, no doubt, as his own thoughts rather than Valjean’s words. Valjean has learned better by now than to press him. His inner mechanisms must finish turning first.

“I do not understand why you would offer me this,” Javert says at last, and his voice is a pained, guttural whisper now. 

Valjean sets his book on the cushions beside himself and rises. He moves slowly, as if approaching a feral child or a flighty horse; Javert does not look at him, and the closer he gets the more Javert’s mouth twists into a hard and unhappy line, but he does not flee into the darkness behind him. Part of him wants to reach out and touch the rough fabric of Javert’s sleeve, to press his arm as if he could impart some measure of warmth and clarity through the solidity of his fingers alone. But he knows better by now; he keeps his hands at his side.

“I am offering it,” Valjean says. “Freely, and willingly. Is that not enough?”

Javert’s face is set in a grimace, his eyes cast to the floor. “It should not be.”

“Well,” Valjean says, and makes a helpless little gesture, as if to say  _ it is as it is. _

Javert raises his eyes. They are wary. “I would not deny you any happiness you might find with another person,” he says at last, and Valjean’s heartbeat immediately picks up. 

“There is no one else,” Valjean says. “My life is near over, Javert.”

“Stop saying that,” Javert snaps. “Any man your age would have many good years left. And you are wealthy.”

“That is no good reason to marry.”

“Yes, I know,” Javert says irritably. “I was merely trying to say--you have options.”

Valjean smiles. He can do nothing else. For in that moment Javert is so full of awkward and unfamiliar grace, made rigid and haughty by the current of that strange intent which is not kindness and yet perhaps moves to the same end. The time has come where Valjean must act, must do  _ something, _ for to continue standing here in strangeness and in doubt is too much. He takes a risk. He reaches out and lets his fingers brush the back of Javert’s hand where it hangs limply by his side. 

Javert’s breath hisses in his teeth, a sharp inhalation; the tendons beneath Valjean’s hand tense as the fingers clench; but Javert does not pull away.

“All the love in my heart, I gave to Cosette,” he says gently. “There is none left that I would give to any other.” He hesitates; for now they have come to the crux of it, and after walking so slowly and with such great care to the very edge, they may yet tumble backwards. Valjean’s hand moves over the edge of Javert’s knuckles, down his curled fingers; as he gently slips his own against the warm crease where Javert’s fingernails bite into his palm, the grip loosens. Gently, slowly, Valjean teases the fist into a hand once more; a hand which he raises to press between two of his own. “There is nothing I can lose anymore,” Valjean says gently. “Javert--let me help you.”

Javert stares at him, desperate and desolate. He is painted of shadows, the dark swaths of his whiskers and the gleaming shine of his pulled-back hair, the gleaming pits of his eyes. 

“You deserve better than this,” Javert says, guttural. “It would be the grossest injustice, for you to be mine. It would be grotesque.”

And then, before Valjean can open his mouth to refute him, at once Javert is sinking to one knee.

Valjean is so shocked he almost takes a step back, but Javert’s other hand has risen to clasp Valjean’s tightly; he bows his head over their tangled fingers, and Valjean can feel the warmth of his harsh breathing, the brush of a loose strand of hair. 

“You will not permit me to die; permit me this. I would bind myself to you; I would lose every part of myself within you; I would be yours, by God’s law and man’s, and that, I think, would be right.” His hands are a still, iron grip on Valjean’s. Still he does not look up. “I would offer myself to you, as yours. If you would have me.” 

Valjean stares at him in blank astonishment. This, he had never accounted for. Surely Javert had misspoken--he could not think of offering himself up, his whole being, to a man who once he had reviled as less than human. A man he had said, mere months ago, could never change; for even with the transformation Javert had undergone in those long and toilsome months since, part of him must surely remained convinced of Valjean’s wretchedness until the very end. 

The silence drags on; Javert looks up. Then there is no doubting his expression. It holds the grim, ecstatic agony of Joan of Arc being licked by the flames. And surely that is what he is--a martyr. For he would rather die than do Valjean any harm; and this will be another kind of death for him, a different oblivion to swallow him up.

Valjean draws in a ragged breath. This is not what he expected, he cannot account for it; his heart beats in his ribs like a jessed hawk straining against its cord. 

How could he possibly refuse?

“Very well,” he says, his voice hoarse; and Javert bows back over his hand as if the power of Valjean’s gaze has exceeded his strength at last. Valjean squeeze it once more, a strange thrill passing through him. “Please, Javert--stand up.” 

Javert does so, clumsily as a foal. Valjean grips him tight to steady him. Once on his feet, he sways slightly; in any other circumstances Valjean would have steadied his arm, but he is not certain what is permitted to him now, and so instead he holds fast to Javert’s hand.

“As long as you are certain,” he begins, and then cuts himself off at the hot slash of Javert’s glare--the first time Javert has met his eyes since revealing his proposition moments before. No, Valjean corrects himself, that strange swing of giddiness careening through him again--since his  _ proposal _ . 

“I am certain,” Javert says. 

Valjean bites back the hive of insecurities and doubts swarming on the tip of his tongue. Instead he manages a smile.

“Then the rest will follow,” he says, and presses Javert’s hand one final time; then lets it slip from his grasp, and watches as Javert bows his dark head, looking at once very pained and very tired, and slips from the room without another word, a shadow moving down the shadowy hall. 


	2. Chapter 2

For weeks, Javert has not slept. Not in any true sense of the word; not in the sense that any action has given him rest. He has lain awake in bed, staring at the darkness of the ceiling above that seems itself to be the night sky, wiped clean of stars and moon, a flat vast plain of nothingness rushing downward to crush him. He is buffeted by sleep like a swimmer caught against a rocky shore, flung between exhausted wakefulness and dreams whose contours he can only feel at in the aftermath like slick oily shapes in the dark. For weeks he has been exhausted, adrift. 

But the night after Valjean at last puts the seal on his fate, Javert lies down in the bed which is not his own and sleep opens up beneath him, and he falls, is falling into an endless nothing, suspended in silence, giving himself up to gravity. 

He wakes, mouth dry, limbs heavy. For a moment he does not know where he is. Is he in his old apartments? Has he been ill? But no, the familiar furnishings of his room at Rue Plumet finally become recognizable to his bleary eyes. It is only that he has not yet managed to sleep so late, and the light makes everything strange. 

Slowly he rises, feeling stiff joints and sore muscles protest. He ignores them; his body will serve his will, and without complaint, so help him. He washes in the basin, the water a shock of cold; he does not think of anything at all besides the mechanical motions of preparing for the day. It is not until he has made himself decent and dressed and stepped across the threshold into the hallway that the anxious fizzle at the end of his nerves prickles to life once more. From the kitchen comes the sound of activity, conscientiously muffled. With every step closer Javert draws the nervousness raises in pitch.

Valjean is making tea. He fusses over the stove where the kettle splutters, the pot and two cups already laid out. The sunlight comes in through the opened curtains, white and clean with mid-morning. Valjean’s mass of curls is whiter than snow. 

Javert has only wavered in the doorway a moment when Valjean goes still. Perhaps some flicker of instinct within Valjean stirs; the old convict’s senses awake even now. The thought comes to Javert unwillingly, and he is immediately ashamed of it even as Valjean turns. He blinks, seeing Javert watching him; belatedly Javert clears his throat as if to announce himself, so they both might pretend he has not been skulking in the shadows of this sunlight kitchen watching Valjean like a hunter behind a blind. 

He does not feel like a hunter. He feels ungainly and vulnerable. But then Valjean smiles, hesitantly, and Javert finds the will within himself to make it to the table and sit down.

“I wasn’t certain when you would be awake,” Valjean says. “Will you take tea?”

Javert nods. His mouth is sealed shut, his tongue expanded to pack every open space. It is easier to watch the familiar, almost comforting motions of Valjean preparing tea, his weathered hands so delicate as they spoon leaves into the pot, pour the water from the kettle, lay out the cups. Neither of them take sugar or cream, so there is nothing to do but sit and wait for the tea to steep, neither of them meeting each other’s gaze. 

_ I would offer myself to you, as yours. If you would have me. _

At last there is no hiding from it; the memory of what passed the night before comes roaring into the stilted silence between them, and with it comes the shame: a hammer of it crashing down on Javert’s stomach so powerfully it could double him over. Had he truly spoken those words? Could he have ever been so forward, so wanton, so cringing? And yet this shame is what he deserves; he submits to it, embraces it, even as it scours him clean. He bows his head at Valjean’s table, feeling his face heat and his hands clench on his knees, out of sight. 

The silence draws on. The tick of the kettle cooling is the only sound. “Javert,” Valjean says gently. “About what was said last night.”

Javert says nothing, waiting. Dully, the thought occurs to him for the first time: Valjean will of course have come to his senses. He had agreed out of obligation, seeing Javert so uncharacteristically distraught (though he has been in such a state so often in these past months that surely Valjean must be used to it by now). 

But what Valjean says is quite different. “I fear that you spoke hastily, and from a poor state of mind. I would understand wholly if your feelings on the matter were much different now in the light of day.”

Javert’s eyes shoot up to Valjean’s, unable to hide his disbelief. For Valjean to think it was  _ his _ commitment which was faltering--but of course Valjean would take his reticence as regret. 

“All that was said, I meant,” Javert says. “If you have changed your mind that is well, but I--I have not, and will not.”

And if Valjean has second thoughts--what then? For Javert cannot image returning to the horror of his own mind as it had been without this certainty. But whatever Valjean’s decision, he will abide by it. 

When he looks up again Valjean is watching him. His expression is difficult to read. “I have not changed my mind,” he says softly. 

“Well then,” Javert says, as if a chorus of anxiety and anticipation is not building within him. “When shall we marry?”

Valjean blinks. His lips part as if in the first stages of a laugh. “I suppose there is no reason to delay,” he says, awkwardly, but smiling; and then gives a start and rises to pour their tea. 

Javert watches him, wondering at the strangeness he feels.  _ We are engaged _ , Javert thinks, and at once feels the hammer return--this time crashing down on his heart. He is not certain what he is feeling as he watches Valjean fill his cup; whether it is dread, or fear, or simply the peace at having found his authority to submit to. For his being has writhed like a fish on a pike ever since that moment at the barricades when his world suffered the first killing blow, and the moment outside the sewers when the wound tore wholly open. He has been wrong; he has felt the awful, greasy burden of his own wrongness tugging him down, and the current of his past certainties raging around him; he has been choked by the unbearable debts he owes, his life twice over to Valjean. 

And yet now, this morning, for the first time since his certainty was torn out of him, he feels that awful, unlivable confusion cease. He can breathe. There is a path ahead of him. 

He will take it.

* * *

Valjean arranges everything, for Javert still wavers at the threshold like a specter wont to dissolve the moment he steps outside. Such fancies do not suit him; he would sooner be rid of them. And yet though he has tried to force himself to leave, to join Valjean on his walks to the Luxenberg or down to the market, the front door seems more a dam to him, holding back the wild and terrible ocean of the world outside, a world he had once thought as still and simple as a bathtub. 

So he remains in the house; Valjean takes care of what business is required outside, gathering the necessary paperwork and discovering a notary, a friend of the G------. Javert waits at home. He supposes he must grow accustomed to this; for this will be his station from now on, his rightful place. He will have no rights, no legal identity besides what is included in Valjean’s. He will be wholly subsumed. The thought makes him dizzy, though he is not certain if it is with fear, or--what else would it be? He paces the boards of this room which is not his room, tugging at his whiskers until his jaw aches. Not once does he think of withdrawing his offer. Out of all the emotions which torment him, doubt is no longer among them.

He can shoulder anything, save that.

So the days pass, those scant days before the final plunge. Things are as they were before and yet they are not, not at all. They eat their meals together and speak of the weather, the garden, the books Javert has read while Valjean was gone. They do not speak of what is to come, besides a few essential details which Valjean relays to him quickly, blushing, eyes on the hands in his lap. 

Valjean mentions nothing of Cosette. As a consequence, neither does Javert; though on the tip of his tongue are the words,  _ surely she would wish to be told--surely you would wish your daughter to be there _ . He does not utter them. He must not forget the purpose of this; that this is not a joyous occasion, but rather a grim sacrifice, and there is no reason at all for Valjean to want a person he loves to witness it. 

The day comes. Javert rises, washes, and dresses as he usually does; he does not own any clothes more notably fine than his usual ones, and he likely would not wear them today if he did. He steps from the bedroom and finds Valjean waiting at the table. They take their tea and eat their bread in silence. There is a feeling in Javert’s belly like a spring being wound tighter and tighter; his cup rattles slightly as he sets it back on its saucer, and he despises himself.

“Well,” Valjean says at last, after he’s cleared their cups and rinsed the teapot clean. Javert allowed him to do it, knowing that he should offer to help and yet wholly unable to. Now Valjean stands with his hands on the back of the chair, smiling awkwardly. “I suppose it is time.” 

“Yes,” Javert says. That is not his voice; surely it belongs to a man on his deathbed. And yet Javert rises from his chair without difficulty; he follows on Valjean’s heels to the front door. Here he puts on his coat, the actions mechanic and yet also awkward--he has not done so in months. Though he has lost weight since last he wore it, the fabric seems to constrict his arms and chest. Surely his collar is tightening around his throat? He resists the urge to dig a finger into it, for he cannot bear the thought of Valjean expressing concern.

The door stands before them. Perhaps it is Javert’s anxiety distorting his vision--surely, that must be it--but it seems that the door is bulging inward, as if under some ferocious pressure barely held back. He realizes, distantly, that he has been standing here staring mutely at the wood for far longer than can be justified; realizes also that Valjean is watching him. His shoulders tense in preparation for the gentle words to come, the words he does not deserve. But Valjean merely looks at him a moment longer, and then steps forward to open the door.

Winter sunlight streams in, pale and cloud-filtered. Javert blinks in it, his feet rooted to the floorboards. It is different, more vibrant, than that which makes it through the windows. Valjean stands to the side, not yet passing through. It must be Javert, then, to take the first step. That is only fair and right. The world awaits; a labyrinth it seems he must willingly walk into, knowing there is no way out. At the very least, he won’t walk alone. 

He crosses the threshold. The cold of a winter’s day sinks in its teeth, the breeze feels his face like a blind lover rediscovering his features, the door is creaking shut behind him and Valjean is taking his arm.

“I can call a fiacre,” Valjean says, but Javert shakes his head.

“I would prefer to walk,” he says with a thick tongue, and so Valjean guides him on. 

The arm looped through his own grates at first, and yet he could not dream of pulling away. Each impact of his feet on the stones of the street seems enough to rattle him apart. A sheen of sweat slicks his forehead despite the cold. His arms feel too heavy to lift and wipe his brow. They pass other people who pay them no heed, and yet the faces of strangers are almost demonic to Javert’s gaze.

There is still some wild and traitorous impulse which leaps within him, urging him to step aside and point the righteous finger of blame, to shout “This man is a convict--this man is Jean Valjean!” for all the street to hear. It is the urge which overcomes any man standing in a high place looking down, the traitorous crevice of the brain which urges,  _ jump _ . He ignores it; it is nauseating all the same. 

Valjean’s arm tightens around his own. For a horrible moment, Javert thinks he will offer to take them back to the house. 

“I am here,” is what Valjean says instead; and Javert can only nod, helpless, overwhelmed, and allow himself to be swept deeper into this unfamiliar world, clinging to the single force in the universe more certain and resolute than Javert’s false convictions. 

* * *

The marriage is a simple affair, conducted in the shabby office of a notary over the span of no more than half an hour. It passes in a blur; there is the signing of papers, a few pointed questions from the notary, who seems unconvinced that there is truly no secret wedding party hiding just outside the door. Afterwards, Javert vaguely remembers scrawling his name in the required places, the ones which will consign him forever to Valjean’s keeping. And then they are back in the sunlight again, with barely any time having passed, except everything is different now.

Javert feels a light touch on his arm, and realizes that he has been standing here in a state of amazement, staring at the street without seeing it. He turns to look at Valjean and thinks:  _ I belong to this man _ . The man known as Javert is no more--there is only Valjean. Valjean, who is safe from him at last; for Javert has been unmade. 

He feels blissfully empty, as if all the tumult within him has been scraped clean. He meets Valjean’s gaze, which scrutinizes him uncertainly. 

“Shall we go?” Valjean says. 

It does not matter where. Javert would follow this man anywhere. But what he says is simply, “Yes,” and falls into step beside this man who has doomed him and saved him more times than any one man should rightfully lay claim to. 


	3. Chapter 3

_ One month later. _

The soil is warm beneath Valjean’s hands as he gently eases the first batch of carrots from the ground. A healthy bundle sits beside him, the greens peeking out of the burlap bag he steadily fills. The air smells of grass, and the late honeysuckleblooming, and moist, rich earth. It is early enough in the day and year that the sun at his back is a pleasant warmth, rather than the buffeting furnace it will become as both progress. 

A fine day--very fine. And yet, like a single weed with its tendrils curling around the vital root of one of his flowers, there is one thing which his senses tell him is wrong, or missing.

Valjean stands, his knees cracking irritably in protest. For a moment he stands and inspects the vegetable bed; the aubergines are coming along nicely, though they won’t be ready for harvesting for another month yet. Some little animal has been nibbling at his cabbages. Inevitably, his gaze reaches the end of the bed and rises, as if by chance, to the window which overlooks the garden. The pane reflects the sunlight from where he is standing, presenting nothing but a blank white barrier tilted slightly inward towards the lightless places within. 

Valjean approaches it carefully. From inside he can feel the shaded air wafting out to cool the thin sheen of sweat on his face. As he stops to rest his forearms on the stone sill, he can see the interior in greater detail--though the shadow which lingers just to the side remains no more than that, faceless and featureless to his sun-dazzled eyes. It matters very little; Valjean can imagine Javert perfectly, sitting stiffly in his favorite chair, a book on his lap which he may have been reading or which at times he keeps only as a prop. Though he cannot make out the man’s eyes, he can feel their regard. 

“Come outside,” Valjean says, softly and yet hating the note of tentative pleading in his voice. 

The shadow shifts. “I would not wish to disturb you.”

Valjean chuckles helplessly. “You would not. I would enjoy the company.” 

A pause; the shadow retreats from the window. So that is it, then; he has pushed too hard, and now Javert will retreat again, deeper into the house and into himself. But then the door creaks open, and Javert emerges slowly, blinking against the sunlight; and Valjean’s face breaks into a broad smile. 

“Come sit with me,” he says, and Javert grumbles as he kneels down in the long grass by the vegetable bed. The sun is hot; Valjean speaks through his actions as he gently tugs the carrots free, but Javert only sits quietly, and holds the bag open when Valjean needs it. 

* * *

So it has gone. Javert no longer remains penned in a single room; though certainly he prefers to remain in the room which was Cosette’s and now is his own. He moves to the kitchen and living room without difficulty; he enters the garden warily but without complaint. And when Valjean asks if Javert will accompany him to the Luxembourg, the market, even to his daughter’s house, Javert crosses the threshold; but only when Valjean asks, and the effort is undertaken with difficulty.

At all other times things remain much as they had been before the--before the marriage, except for a new awkwardness which has sprung up between them unlike the stiff uncertainty of two men bent beneath the weight of their pasts. And the change in sleeping arrangements, of course, but Valjean has been making a concentrated effort not to think on that too often. 

He is out by himself when it happens--he has taken a more leisurely way to the market, lost in thought, when he finds that he has stopped in front of a storefront which before now has never given him occasion to pause. The painted wooden sign of a jeweler hangs above the street; a dim memory sparks of a conversation with his daughter at the Gillenormand’s dinner table, prior to the wedding, and a brief mention of procuring the rings. But it is not the familiar pang of loss which springs up within him at the thought of his daughter’s marriage. Instead he finds himself stepping up to the door and entering the shop before his mind can catch up to question why. 

Not so long after that he is leaving in a daze, a hefty sum now signed over to the jeweler and the phantom press of the delicate measuring string still wrapped around his ring finger. He sleep-walks to the market, follows the mechanical motions to purchase more bread and cheese; by the time he has returned to Rue Plumet he has not even lost enough time for Javert, ever hypervigilant to the slightest change in his schedule, does not even question him as he steps in through the door. 

“It is quite hot out,” Valjean says as Javert steps forward to meet him. He allows the man to take the bread and wrapped cheese from him, setting them on the table.

“Then you should not be out running errands which your housekeeper would be ecstatic to perform for you,” Javert retorts, turning back to Valjean. He helps Valjean with his coat, as has become their custom--it is a small duty but nonetheless an intimate one.

Javert pauses, Valjean’s coat in hand. “Is all well,” he says, in a way where it is not so much a question as an accusation--but that is simply the man’s usual manner. Still, a pang of guilt shoots through him; his fingers twitch, as if the string which the jeweler had measured him with is still tugging on his finger. 

He forces a smile all the same. “Very well,” he says, even knowing it’s too late to lie. Javert is as far from a fool as it is possible to be, and furthermore he is far too observant. His eyes narrow at Valjean’s hesitation. But still he simply finishes hanging his coat by the door, brushing invisible dust from its collar with long fingers. There was a time when he would question Valjean further. 

No longer.


	4. Chapter 4

In the parlor where Javert reads, the methodical tick of the clock and the occasional rustle of a turning page is the only sound. It’s not a particularly good book--he had not even looked at the title before plucking it from the shelf, and he can make little sense of it now--but he no longer reads the newspaper with its discrete, well-organized columns and comforting straightforwardness, and so must make due. 

In truth he misses his daily paper, but he no longer enjoys being reminded of the world outside his sanctuary. In truth he would rather not be reading at all. But what more is there to do? He had tried, once, in a moment of daring, to slip out ot the garden and work on the garden while Valjean was gone. Later Valjean gently informed him that he’d pulled out a good portion of the parsley along with the weeds, and so Javert abandoned gardening as a potential way of passing the time.

He wishes Valjean were back now. It is always worse when he is gone, no matter how he tries to give the man a wide berth. He bows further over the book to ignore the fluttering of his heart. 

The sound of voices and crunching footsteps approaches from the street; almost immediately Javert recognizes Cosette’s high clear tones, spilling out fast as a bubbling stream. Javert rises, his knees complaining, and straightens his waistcoat with a tug. He does not do well with visitors these days, but spending time with Valjean’s daughter is not such a hardship.

From the front hall, the creak of the door. Javert grips his hands behind his back and prepares his face in a blank mask--he has found most people prefer it to his attempts at a smile. Valjean comes into the parlor washed on a wave of his daughter’s words:  _...and of course we will need to discuss the matter with Monsieur Gillenormand, and there will be much to plan--yes, not too much Papa, I do remember what you said!-- _ and at the look on the man’s face, Javert’s body goes from a position of forced relaxation to being as taut as a drawn bow. 

Valjean’s expression is set in a forced smile, his face a little pale; but it is his eyes which give the true warning, wide and pleading as if already begging forgiveness for something Javert does not yet know.

And then Cosette is upon them, her brown hair bouncing with her movements as she bounds up to Javert like an overexcited foal, her white-gloved hands extended, grinning so hard it must hurt.

“Monsieur Javert, oh Monsieur--my father has only just told me the happy news! Please, you must give me your hand, I must congratulate you both--and scold you most fiercely, of course, for having gone about it all so secretly!” Her small hands have clasped around Javert’s much larger one with a strength born from zeal. She stares up into his face, her eyes wide and happy, and Javert finds himself looking to Valjean once more in bafflement. 

“Madame Cosette,” he begins, “I am not certain I--”

“Oh, please monsieur, we must do away with that! Surely you might call me only Cosette, and--oh, dear, I called you monsieur again, didn’t I?” A charming blush touches Cosette’s features; her hands still grip Javert’s. “Perhaps you would permit me to address you by your name alone, now? I suppose it is far too early to think of calling you ‘father’--yes, I see from your face that it won’t do.”

The words hit Javert like the fall of a mallet. She knows--somehow, Cosette has gleaned the truth of Javert’s arrangement with her father. Or, well, not the truth surely, but something worse: the assumptions any sane person would leap to on learning her father had married. 

He had not yet considered the fact that his actions made him the girl’s father-in-law until the moment the words passed her lips. He finds he is wholly unprepared for the realization, with this young woman staring up at him with a fragment of the love she looks upon her father with, a fragment given to him only by association and wholly undeserved. 

“‘Javert’ will do well for us, Ma--Cosette.”

Cosette beams no longer; her expression has mellowed into one of true affection, her eyes crinkled with it. “Very well, Javert,” she says, taking on a playfully grand tone. “I understand that Papa managed somehow to talk you into having no ceremony at all--honestly!” she says, shooting her father a mock-chiding glance. “He is so averse to any unnecessary fuss or expense on his own behalf, is he not? But perhaps we can cure him of it together. I have insisted to my father that we mark the occasion, and he had demanded that we obtain your consent. That is of course only right--but surely you would not object to a small dinner at _____?”

Javert looks to Valjean on pure instinct. The man lingers behind, his expression much the same as it was when he came in: all panic and apology and perhaps, underneath it all, a kernel of pleading. Javert can imagine the man’s conundrum, for surely if it were only him needing to suffer the torture of a dinner at the Gillenormand house at his daughter’s request, he would have undertaken it without hesitation or complaint. The man was virtually incapable of saying no do his daughter. And yet he could not well say yes against Javert’s wishes.

The thought of leaving the house to spend an evening with virtual strangers in which his position in relation to Valjean will be scrutinized and lauded in equal parts is enough to make his stomach flip and twist inside of him like a fish speared on a pike. He can scarce imagine anything worse. And yet he looks to Valjean, and knows that the man would do this. 

And how can he deny Valjean anything? 

“You will hear no objection from me,” he says, and Cosette’s face breaks into a smile.

“You see, Papa?” she says, reaching back for her father’s hand. He obediently takes hers, and she recaptures Javert’s, and leads them both further into the parlor so they might all sit. “I knew that your husband--oh, how wonderful to say that!--I knew he would be agreeable. This will be wonderful, you will see. You need not worry about anything, I will handle all the details. Come, let us sit down; you both must tell me everything about everything, or at least a small part of it.”

The remainder of the visit passes in a whirlwind; Cosette gushes and presses both their hands, throws her arms around her father three separate times, and then after an eternity contained in the span of a few hectic moments, flounces out the door to the waiting carriage once more. She leaves in her wake a silence so heavy Valjean seems to crumple behind it, standing near the door where Cosette has only just left, his shoulders bowed and his eyes lowered. It is a picture so deferential and pathetic that Javert can hardly stand it. 

“Sit down,” Javert says, keeping his voice consciously level despite the familiar whip-crack of tension which threatens to emerge. “Please,” he says, when Valjean still hesitates. At last the man troops dutifully to the couch where Javert stands, as meek as a kicked dog. They sit together, Valjean casting a nervous glance up at him.

“How did she discover it?” Javert asks, for there seems little purpose in dissembling. 

Valjean flushes. It’s a comely expression, in truth: the faint pink of his cheeks a pleasant enough counterpoint to his cloud of white hair. “She, ah. Happened to 

“A jeweler!” Javert exclaims with a snort. “And what on earth would you have been doing there to begin with?” It is precisely at that moment--when Valjean’s eyes dart to his in a flash of embarrassment and guilt--that Javert realizes Valjean is sitting with his hands in his lap and, most damningly, one hand clasped over the other in an attitude which up until that moment had appeared perfectly natural. Javert almost laughs. There was a point in his life--notably, the entire course of it up until a year ago--where such an obvious ploy would never have escaped him. He supposes that somewhere along the way he has learned to trust.

“Show me your hands.”

Valjean’s mouth twists ruefully, but he does as instructed. Both palms are displayed, empty of course; it is the simple band of gold around the ring finger of Valjean’s left hand which Javert’s gaze seizes on, and then his hands. He takes Valjean’s hand unthinkingly, only realizing he’s done it at the sound of Valjean’s sharp inhalation. He keeps his fingers gentle, a thumb swiped up one of the lines on Valjean’s palm in a silent apology--lifeline? heart line? he cannot remember, no matter how many times his mother had read his palms. He cast that knowledge into the abyss long ago. What matters now is the ring, which he inspects from different angles while turning Valjean’s hand over, unable to stop himself from also feeling the parallel lines of Valjean’s tendons, the hard bumps of his knuckles. 

The silence draws out--Javert finds himself quite unable to look away. For some reason the sight of that plain ring on Valjean’s hand makes his chest and neck warm beneath his clothes. Both of their eyes remain riveted to their hands, the turn and twine of fingers. He wants to touch the metal but something keeps him from doing so. He forces a laugh instead.

“Well, where is mine?” 

At that Valjean’s eyes lock onto his face, and Javert is forced to lift his gaze as well. Valjean’s lips are faintly parted, his brow furrowed in confusion. 

“I--I did not think you would care for one yourself,” Valjean stammers out at long last. 

“I can hardly wander around bare-handed while my husband wears his ring,” Javert replies, and Valjean’s fingers tighten seemingly without his knowledge. The words leave Javert’s mouth dry.

“I suppose you are correct,” Valjean says, ducking his head with a small smile. “It was a foolish fancy on my part. I merely thought--well. If I was to be married, I wanted it to feel real.”

Javert must let go of his hand. He must, and yet his fingers will not obey him. His palms, which through a dozen police raids and chases down alleyways and standoffs have never once grown sweaty on his pistol or cudgel, are now as clammy as a new recruit’s. Surely Valjean can feel it, but he does not pull away. “All the more reason for me to join you.”

“I would like that.” Valjean’s smile spreads wider, still directed down at their hands.

Javert clears his throat; by some miracle, he finally pulls back, straightening his cravat. Had he ever had a nervous gesture before Valjean fished him out of the Seine? Had he ever had anything truly worth being nervous about? “Perhaps--we could take the measurements of my own hand here--”

Valjean’s hand flutters as it to reach out to him before settling back on his own knee. “Of course,” he says softly, and that is that.

* * *

It is only a day later that the letter arrives. There is never any post for them here, and so the letter Touissant leaves at the breakfast table is an immediate object of suspicion. Valjean raises it without so much as attending to his tea; from his place across the small table Javert can see it is of a fine, heavy paper, though he cannot make out the seal. 

Since it is addressed to Valjean and not to him, Javert makes a bare effort to focus his attention on his own breakfast of tea and bread, scraping the thinnest screen of butter onto it. Early in their cohabitation, Javert had noticed that Valjean ate a hard, rough seed bread while serving much finer to his unintentional guest--he had quickly raised such a fuss that now they both ate the same middling quality, bread which the bakers sold at a discount at the end of the day. It was still finer than what Javert was used to, but the victory was largely in forcing Valjean to stop martyring himself. 

He has not so much as taken a bite when a sharp inhalation from across the table wrenches his gaze back up again. The blood has drained from Valjean’s face. He stares at Cosette’s letter though his eyes do not move and his lips are compressed in a grim line. A menagerie of horrors parade before Javert’s mind--a sudden illness? a fall from a carriage?--but when Valjean’s gaze finally rises it is panic, not grief, which strickens his features.

“It seems Cosette has informed her husband of her intent to host us for dinner,” Valjean says. 

Javert nods slowly, setting down his butter knife. “That seems inevitable if we are to dine with him.” 

“Yes.”

Valjean falls silent again, his fingers worrying the paper as if he can wring a different answer from it. At last Javert can take it no more. “For Gods’ sakes Valjean, what has the boy done this time?”

Valjean stares at him with an expression of anguish. “It would seem that Marius then informed his grandfather, who then decided that a mere quiet dinner among family was not a proper celebration for a new marriage. They intend to host a party--a large party, as such things go. Cosette has already protested, but Madame Gillenormand seemed quite taken with the idea.”

“Ah.”

“I will write back immediately,” Valjean says, standing quickly. “Surely they invitations will not go out until tomorrow at the earliest, no matter how they might be rushing. Cosette objected on our behalf, of course, but it seems the Gillenormands have certain ideas on the proper way to celebrate a wedding. With my written objection--”

“Valjean.” Javert surprises himself with the levelness of his own voice; the sound of it makes Valjean pause in the act of raking distracted fingers through his hair, and meet Javert’s gaze for the first time since reading the letter. “Sit down, please,” Javert says, and wordlessly, helplessly, Valjean collapses back into his chair. Javert fixes him with an evaluating stare which he hopes makes his own apprehension less obvious. 

“How much offense do you expect the Gillenormands will take at your rejecting their party on your behalf?”

Valjean remains silent. He is, perhaps, thinking of Monsieur Gillenormand’s pride; the fact that he would disown his own grandson rather than suffer a disgrace in the family. 

“I will go on both our behalves,” Valjean says at last. “We can inform them of a sudden illness which keeps you at home--”

“--and which is so trivial that you feel comfortable leaving my bedside to attend a party? That doesn’t sound much like you, Valjean. And there’s of course the fact that you are not nearly as good a liar as your life of evading the law might suggest.” Javert picks up a new piece of bread and continues buttering it, hoping his hands appear steadier than they feel. “The simplest solution is always the correct one. I will attend, and that is that.”

The silence stretches out.*

“Javert,” Valjean says slowly, “you have difficulty leaving the house to walk alone with me in the Luxembourg. There are bound to be dozens of people at this party, all of whom will no doubt wish to speak with us.”

“I understand the general concept of a party,” Javert says dryly. He picks up the final piece of bread to butter it, knowing he will have to choke down all that is on his plate if he does not wish to arouse Valjean’s suspicion. “It is only a single night. I will be uncomfortable, yes, and then it will be over. The Gillenormands will get what they want, as will your daughter. And from there, we can let the matter rest.” 

Valjean says nothing, but he can feel the man’s eyes on him. If he is wondering why Javert is choosing to sacrifice his comfort and sanity to satisfy the whims of others, well. Javert might have a few choice words for him on that subject in general. But Valjean merely mumbles a quiet “very well,” and Javert sets himself to the grim task of eating the whole of his breakfast. 


	5. Chapter 5

Surely night arrives sooner on the evening before the party, the sun hurrying below the horizon and a dark wash of shadow coursing in its wake, eager as floodwater finding its way into every cranny. Time itself has shown no mercy these past weeks leading up to the event; as the day grew closer and closer Javert had been finding himself sitting in his room in the late hours of the evening, unable to sleep, watching the clock with a bleary-eyed suspicion that the second hand was in fact taking certain laps in sprints. He has spent his days exhausted; Valjean, noticing, has taken on an attitude of guilty misery. 

Cosette has kept them apprised of the slow-motion disaster with a series of paper missives fluttering in day by day, telling of an ever-expanding guest list and a menu fit to feed half of Paris. It is something like being trapped within a nightmare, waking every morning with the desperate hope he has left it in his dreams. But time races on, and the nightmare continues, and then there is only one night and some of a morning in between them and the final ordeal.

Javert sits at the dining table, a half-drained cup of tea by his hand, growing cold. The house is utterly silent, dark but for the lamp he has lit for himself here--he is surrounded by darkness, but the shadows are far too watery for his liking. As if they might melt away at any moment to reveal the dawn, and deny him the one refuge he has left. In the parlor there is a stately grandfather clock; from a room away Javert can hear the pendulum clicking the seconds away. His fingers twitch in time with the sound, their movement occasionally racing ahead when he doesn’t catch himself. 

A glint on his finger catches the lamplight occasionally; the ring Valjean retrieved for him a week ago. He had placed it in Javert’s palm with a shy smile, and Javert had slipped it onto his own finger--only realizing with the movement he had rather expected Valjean to do so for him. He has never worn rings, and cannot seem to become unaware of it on his finger. 

He really ought to sleep tonight, for he is already exhausted and will need all his strength tomorrow. But still he stares at the cup of tea before him, unable to summon the will even to lift the bitter draught to his lips. He feels like a rabbit beneath the eyes of a hawk, paralyzed by a lying instinct which tells him that as long as he remains completely still, he will be safe. All his life he has played nothing but the hawk. He cannot contend with this. 

But why? Why must he face this like a man sentenced to the gallows? Has he truly become such a coward that he cannot face a simple social gathering without his breath freezing in his throat? No, he cannot even bare to think.

“Javert?” He had not noticed the glow of light from the doorway behind him until that soft, careful voice revealed itself. Javert starts all the same, his hand clenching into a fist on the table. He cannot turn; in a moment Valjean steps into his frame of vision, a lighted candle in hand, a light robe drawn on over his nightshirt. He is all pale hair and pale clothes and dark, worried eyes; an image which belongs on the frieze of a church, perhaps. A Virgil to guide Dante through hell, if Dante had realized he belonged there. 

“It is very late,” Valjean says. 

Javert licks his lips. Drawn back into his body by the necessity of speech, he can no longer ignore the feeling like the muscles of his chest are being tightened like the turn of a rack. He meets Valjean’s eyes, licking his lips. “It is,” he agrees hoarsely. “You ought to be in bed.”

“As should you. How long have you been here?”

There was no good answer Javert can give to that. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“Couldn’t?” There is something in the way Valjean says it that suggests he knows the truth, and Javert will not be made a liar in this as well.

“I did not wish to,” he says, meeting Valjean’s eyes in a harsh glare. 

For a moment Valjean only stared at him. Then he set his candle on the table and took a seat at the place to Javert’s left, silent, unquestioning. Javert had sat staring into the middle distance before him with a dozen retorts and recriminations building up behind his tongue in response to the reprimand he assumes Valjean is formulating. It never comes. Valjean is silent, his hands clasped on the table and his eyes lowered; he looks tired, but unagitated.

“What are you doing?” Javert snaps at last. “There’s no reason for you to hold a vigil here.”

Valjean looks up at him, his expression unreadable. “If you are holding vigil, then I shall too. That is my duty.”

“You owe me no duty.” Javert practically spits the words. His stomach is twisting, his skin damp with a cold sweat; surely the bands of tension around his chest are expanding up to his throat? “It is I who owe a duty to you.”

“Forgive me, Javert, but you are wrong,” Valjean says. His eyes lower to his hands. “You are my husband, as I am yours,” he says. The light of the candle and lamp soften the age on his face. “If there is a duty which you owe me, then I owe it to you as well. We are one in this. And so I will stay with you.”

“We are not one!” Javert cries. His chair scrapes backwards as he stands in a hurry, a fumbling hand on its back all that stops it from tipping over backwards. “You are not afraid to leave your own doorway. You are not paralyzed by the thought of your daughter’s party. You are not the one who--who stole an innocent man’s life, and then demanded the final dregs of it when the choice was that or death--”

“Javert, please--” Valjean has risen with him, his eyes wide and his hands raised as if to calm a wild animal. Javert indeed feels that he could bite and claw and snarl, but never Valjean. He wants to rip himself apart, for he is the only one who deserves it. He retreats until his back hits the wall, fingers clutching at his scalp, breath nothing more than a wheezing rasp. He cannot _breathe_. A hand has closed around his throat and it is choking the life out of him.

“Now you must pretend to be happy of it, in front of your daughter and half of Paris,” Javert rasps between ragged breaths. “It’s a lie, an awful lie--”

“Javert--”

“You married me out of pity--”

“ _Javert._ ” Something far more solid than the force which strangles his throat and chest seizes him on both arms. He is caught, held, pinned. His heart is going to explode out of his chest. This must be death, at last. He ought to welcome it, but his traitorous body keeps trying to live. 

“Javert, breathe. Please breathe.” The voice which winds its way to him through the dark labyrinth of overstimulation is gentle, though not unafraid. “Let go of your hair. Will you give me your hands?” Fingers slide over his own; he realizes that he is in pain, his head is aflame where his fingernails dig into the scalp. Gently, they are extricated; instead he finds himself clinging to the hands instead, which settle gently against his chest. “Good. Can you open your eyes?”

Javert can only shake his head helplessly. 

“That’s alright.” At once something warm and soft presses to his forehead, smooth skin and the faint tickle of hair. A nose brushes his own, and he is lost, lost to it--he wants nothing more than to give in to this, whatever it is. But the pressure simply remains, and asks no more of him.

“Breathe with me,” the voice says, and though Javert does not want to feel anything anymore he cannot block out the brush of exhalations over his mouth, the slow hiss of in-breaths drawn in through the nose over the wild pounding of his heart. Slowly, without really trying to, he finds himself struggling to mimic them. He clings to the hands; he feels the flutter of lashes against his own. Degree by degree, he comes back from the brink.

When at last the demon has released his throat and his heart has slowed from its whipped frenzy, Javert at last opens his eyes. Even knowing what to expect, the sight of Valjean so close to him is one he cannot be prepared for; and Valjean’s eyes are already open. He cannot bear their scrutiny, and yet he cannot look away. 

“What can I do to help?” Valjean murmurs.

Javert’s breath comes out in a single burst. “Nothing. This. It helps--having you here.” 

For a while there is only silence, Javert struggling to master his panic and his fear, and Valjean’s eyes boring into him like waves slowly smoothing a jagged stone. 

“I do not pity you, Javert,” he says softly, at last. “I used to, before. When I saw you as a blind man fumbling in the wrong direction of the light. But it has been a long time since you have been that man.”

Javert shuts his eyes once more. “You ought to be ashamed to be bound to me.”

“Hush. No.” One hand disentangles itself from the knot between their chests; it rises to swipe across Javert’s cheek, from nose to the edge of his whiskers. 

“I thought it would provide the answer,” Javert whispers. “I thought I was meant to bind myself to you, body and soul. That once I had, we could both be free.”

Valjean’s eyes crinkle slightly with a sad smile. “Freedom is rarely that simple,” he says. 

Javert laughs. It hitches strangely in his throat. “I thought I was releasing you from me at last,” he says. “That I could become nothing, and dissolve away, but instead I have imprisoned you forever.”

“If that is the case, then we are both shackled together.” Valjean is looking into his eyes, and Javert is looking back. The strong, blunt fingers at his jaw reach up occasionally to wipe Javert’s cheeks. He can feel the hard press of Valjean's wedding ring, warm as flesh, and must resist the urge to turn his face closer to it. “Javert,” Valjean says gently, “has it occurred to you that I enjoy spending time in your company?” 

Javert blinks at him. His vision is blurry. “That’s a foolish idea.”

Valjean laughs, and Javert can feel it ghosting over the dampness on his face. “Then I am a fool. You are the only man who understands the entire truth of my past, Javert. I never would have accepted anyone else, and though I did so on behalf of the budding friendship between us, I have come to believe these past months that this has always been meant to be.”

Javert’s chest is tightening again, in a wholly different way. It is a warm heat which squeezes him now, and he does not wish to escape it. He licks his lips; Valjean’s eyes, so close already, dart down to the movement and then back up again. 

And that is it, that is the final straw; perhaps it is the exhaustion or the panic or simply the weight of all these months spent wanting something he could not articulate until now, this very moment, this flicker of Valjean’s eyes. Javert barely needs to move, barely leans forward at all, before his lips are brushing Valjean’s in a stiff and glancing blow which ends as soon as it begins.

Except that it doesn’t. For Valjean gasps so very softly, his eyes not widening in shock but rather driting closed; and then Valjean is leaning forward to repeat the motion, clumsy, but lingering longer this time, and Valjean’s lips are soft and chapped and warm and Javert is pressing back, their noses pressed together, Valjean’s fingers pressed to the side of his face and the other gripping Javert’s hand above both their racing hearts.

When Valjean finally pulls back, it is as if a string has been attached to Valjean’s lips and leading down Javert’s throat; as he retreats, the words tied to the other end are drawn out in a single halting, babbling sentiment that he had not been aware was within him until the moment Valjean pulled it out.

“I believe that, in time, though I am not certain how much, that I might come to--that I could be won over, not through effort but through sheer force of your nature, and your ways, and your habits, all of it--well. It is almost inevitable that I come to love you.”

Valjean’s breath comes out in a sudden, ragged exhalation. His fingers stroke Javert’s whiskers as if needing to ensure the man is indeed beneath his fingertips. “Yes,” he says at last, eyes lowered and his throat bobbing. “I expect it is the same for me." 

“Well then.” And all at once it hits him; a wave of relief and ecstasy and exhaustion so powerful if his back were not to the wall he surely would have swayed on his feet. But it seems Valjean felt it all the same--his arms settle on Javert’s elbows, a steadying pressure.

“It is late,” Valjean says, and Javert nods. They are still so close. Valjean smiles, and again the dam breaks; Javert cannot help but lean in to press another chaste kiss to that upward-curved mouth. How strange, that he never once thought to do it before. They should have been doing this for decades. And yet he cannot help but think, as they break apart and pad softly down the corridor, that perhaps the time was not wasted. He had much to atone for, still. And yet here they are; that in itself is a miracle. 

They will attend the party, it will be awful in all the ways they expect, but he will have Valjean to take his hand or arm, to calm his racing heart with a word or look or touch. He will have Valjean. For that, in the end, is the crux of it all, and a lifetime of wishing for it could not have prepared him for how sweet the reality tasted. 

Some day, in the near future, Javert will ask if Valjean will walk with him in the Luxembourg. It will be a small thing, yes, and he will no doubt manage it very poorly. But they will step across the threshold together, and walk arm in arm, and slowly, Javert will try. 


End file.
